HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDEAST: WAR AIMS; Freeing Prisoners Key Goal in Fight Against Israel

By CRAIG S. SMITH; Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Jerusalem for this article.

Published: August 4, 2006

When Hezbollah guerrillas sneaked into Israel last month, killing and capturing Israeli soldiers and setting off the current crisis, their goal was to trade them for a Lebanese man held by Israel.

The prisoner, Samir Kuntar, was part of a cell that in 1979 raided an apartment building in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, terrorizing the Haran family. Mr. Kuntar shot Danny Haran in the head, killing him, while his daughter, Einat, 4, watched, then smashed the girl's head in with his rifle butt, killing her as well. Mr. Haran's wife, Smadar, hid in the attic with their 2-year-old daughter, so afraid that the girl would cry out that she accidentally suffocated the girl to death.

After Hezbollah made off with two Israeli soldiers in the raid last month, Israel vowed that it would not negotiate for their release. But the question of prisoners held by Israel -- nearly all of them Palestinians -- is the subtext of this crisis and is likely to figure in its resolution. It is an issue that animates Hezbollah and the Palestinians as much as anything else in their fight with Israel.

Political discourse, billboards, street graffiti and militant songs and manifestos are all laced with references, sometimes nearly rote, to winning freedom for the prisoners.

The prisoners now number about 9,700, about 100 of them women, according to a spokeswoman for the Israeli Prison Authority. About 300 are younger than 18, including two girls and a boy of 14, being held in juvenile detention facilities for acts against Israel. The Israelis say many of them are terrorists -- if not quite on the scale of Mr. Kuntar, not far from it -- and some clearly are. But the Palestinians say that others are wrongfully accused and that many have never committed a violent act.

The Hamas movement's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, say they captured the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit as a bargaining chip to win the release of at least some of those prisoners, particularly the women and children. It is a move that many Palestinians support.

''We have 10,000 prisoners in jail, and the world cares only for this one Israeli prisoner,'' said Mohsin Jirjawi, an uncle of a Palestinian wounded in the current fighting, referring to Corporal Shalit during an interview in Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where his wounded nephew is. He said all Palestinians supported Hamas's proposal to trade prisoners with Israel. ''And when Israel doesn't respond, our steadfastness grows.'' When it followed with its raid, Hezbollah said it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Since 1998, the Palestinian Authority has maintained a Ministry of Prisoners' and Former Prisoners' Affairs, with 300 bureaucrats to keep track of the rising number of prisoners in Israeli jails and to give allowances and legal aid to the prisoners and their families. Even its own minister, Wasfi Qabaha, is now in prison, arrested by Israel in the wake of the capture of Corporal Shalit.

For the Palestinians, the ripples of distress from every arrest have become an oppressive wave. One Gaza family has four sons in prison, and more than one family has both parents and children in jail, the Israeli Prison Authority said.

Fakhri al-Barghouti of Ramallah was sentenced to 28 years in jail and is sharing a cell with two of his sons, who are both serving life sentences, said Muhammad Tluli, the Palestinian prisoner's ministry assistant deputy minister. Israeli officials could not immediately confirm those details, but said the Israeli Prison Authority did approve such living arrangements for prisoners with good records of behavior.

''We are willing to sacrifice ourselves for the freedom of the Palestinian prisoners,'' said Abu Muhammad, a field commander for the Qassam Brigades, in a standard turn of phrase. He said he had spent four years in prison after the first intifada, or uprising, against Israel that began in 1987. ''Even if Israel destroys all of Gaza, we will fight until they are released,'' he said.

One of the factors that helped the militant movement Hamas beat the long-governing Fatah movement in elections in January was Fatah's failure to win the release of Palestinian prisoners in large numbers. The Fatah leader and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, secured the release of 900 prisoners in 2005, but Palestinians complained that the prisoners freed did not include long-term prisoners or fighters. Israel said it would not release any Palestinian guilty of killing Israelis.

During the current crisis, the Palestinians and their backers have insisted that there is an easy way for Israel to reclaim its soldiers. ''From the first day, the Arab countries have supported a prisoner exchange -- it's the logical solution,'' said Taher al-Nounou, the Palestinian Authority's Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Israel has repeatedly said that it will not trade prisoners to free its soldiers. But Israel has traded prisoners many times. In January 2004, it released some 430 prisoners in exchange for Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman kidnapped by Hezbollah four years earlier. The exchange also included the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.